Questions on Lowryder Easyryder T5 CoCo Setup

[jupiter cyclops]

Hey guys, i have a 5 pack of lowryder easyryder germing now and have just filled and flushed the 2 gal grow bags with coco and water until salt is gone. The thing is, i have never grown in just straight coco and understand that it can not be treated like soil, but am not 100% on all things.

First of all i will be using GH Floranova Bloom for the whole grow and am not sure about the feeding schedules and dosage from seed to harvest? I hear coco needs more watering and more mantinace than soil. So my first guess would be water everyday, or as my plant tells me it needs more. Also this is an auto so i hear things go a little different than with a full size

Also, do i need to check the runoff water?? have heard mixed things on this. I have a simple PH test kit from GH that i will be using for the nutes and water.

Im using a T-5 4foot4bulb fixture the whole grow ,got both spectrums, i plan on using all grow bulbs until i see flowers then i will switch them out to bloom blubs, on 20/4 and this is in a 5x2 closet.

Thanks so much in advance, I will log this grow once everything is in place, they should hit the grow bags within the week. This is not my first, but i have not had a successful harvest yet, due to security issues forcing me to abort.

 

[jupiter cyclops]

anyone???

 

[mitch_connor]

cheesey would be a good person to give you some answers on AF's in coco

 

[StealthDragon]

I would go with head's 6x9 recipe. I'm doing some autos in it and they're loving it. Make sure to presoak in some calmag too, that's paramount imho.

The h3ad formula consists of GH flora and micro...since you already have the flora, pick up some micro, calmag and ph down...get a digital ph meter and use it properly and take care of it and you should be good to go.

hit up via pm if ya want, or wait for a second opinion

.......winks at me, yeah he knows who's driving.

 

[StealthDragon]

oh I'm not sure on the floranova stuffs. The formula I use is 6 micro/9bloom/2calmag (ml per gallon) ph'd to 5.9. I strongly recommend reading through the head goes coco thread that I linked...just filter h3ad's posts and read through his methods and how he evolved/changed them along the way. There's also a link to a nute calculator in that thread that is a huge help when trying to figure out exactly what your plants need.

I plan on starting a thread in the auto section probably in an hour or so when I get these pics uploaded in that thread I'll be doing some sour60 and gdpxsour60 in coco. I also have a thread in the micro section that has detailed info on my presoak and nute formulas and the results I've had...feel free to take a look.

Coco is quite different then soil...I'm by no means an expert..but I'll tell you what I've learn so far.

Coco has a "cation exchange rate" this is sort of the amount of and type of nutes that the coco can hold. Coco usually has a high amount of K (potassium) in it when you buy it...those are alot of the salts getting flushed. Even if flushed, the coco can still hold a ton of K..and when it has that much K, it can't hold other nutes..like calcium and magnesium. So if you presoak it in some calmag...the excess K is exchanged/balanced (cations are exchanged)with the calcium and magnesium that you are adding. If the coco is not presoaked it's very common to have cal mag deficiencies later on since the coco can't "hold" it. Also you can run into problems later with the excess K being released and giving the plants too much K at the wrong time. Those are very common problems that people have when starting in coco...sometimes people have great results with out flushing at all though, but I think it's better to be safe then sorry and I've done quite well with my methods. Some people also presoak in a very low strength nute solution too instead of just calmag....just to help balance out the coco.

In my experience coco can't really be overwatered, unless you're rreallllly trying to. I water to about 10-20% runoff everytime, everyday...always with the same formula (different strengths according to grow stage though) I know I could water a few times a day but I think that would be quite a waste of nutes. I think it's important to have runoff with each watering to help "flush as you go".

There's tons of people out there that know more then I do about this stuff, hopefully they'll chime in and tell me if I'm wrong on something.

 

[jupiter cyclops]

thanks alot man! i hope i dont screw this one up

 

[uptosumpn]

great info on coco....